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NAYANATARA is one of the sweetest looking heroines around. But since her break up with SIMBU, she seems to be on a path of constant change.

She started paying more attention to her career. And then she mercifully shed a lot of wait. Not satisfied by being JUST BEAUTIFUL, she tried to shed some clothes in THULASI. But the audiences obviously wanted more. So, very consciously, she gave her consent to do a 2-PIECE BIKINI shoot for her upcoming Tamil movie BILLA 2007. The movie is a remake of Hindi DON. Now it is beyond clear that she is focussed on looking SENSUOUS and BEAUTIFUL. Lets wait to see how she carries herself in a 2-PIECE BIKINI… The significance of this particular decision is the fact that, this is the first time a heroine is trying to wear a 2-PIECE BIKINI in recent years in South Indian Cinema. If she succeeds, more and more heroines will surely take this path to success.

I AM really GLAD to inform you all that I have been PARTLY WRONG and PARTLY CORRECT in THULASIs Box-Office Prediction. Very obviously, I am Glad for being PARTLY CORRECT. But also GLAD that I am PARTLY WRONG. The reason being that at least A center Telugu film audiences are showing signs of maturity and rejecting even the STAR movies. The recent examples are CHIRUTHA, ATHIDHI and THULASI. Coming to the Thulasi, it is one of the weakest movies of Venkatesh. I reviewed it so badly that it was in stark contrast with my Box-Office Prediction. But still, I was expecting a Blockbuster. So, did it really make it? The answer is NOOO. But it is a HIT anyway. THULASI is doing AVERAGE business in A centers, ABOVE AVERAGE business in B centers and BLOCKBUSTER business in C centers. So, overall THULASI is a HIT. But many of the A center audiences would perceive it as just an AVERAGE film.

Let me give you an example of an obscure film that many of you might not even remember. It is PUTTINTIKIRA CHELLI of ARJUN. It was one of the biggest hits of the year it got released but none from the A centers even knew about it. Like I always said, every film is not and need not be made for everybody. The same thing can be said about THULASI. But the profit percentages will be lower for THULASI as it had been acquired at a steep price by the buyers when compared to PUTTINTIKIRA CHELLI.

THULASI did really FLOP business in the Overseas. But no one really expected for it to do well in the overseas circuit. I really wonder as to why do these Distributors buy the rights of most of the films with out using some common sense. Anyway, Distributors in USA invested Rs. 1 + 0.12 Crores for it and until now the movie collected only Rs. 0.6 Crores. So, very obviously it won’t make it to the safety zone.

As far as the Andhra pradesh is concerned, as I said earlier, it is doing SAFE and sound business overall. No one is going to suffer loss in A.P. And what really made me ecstatic about is the fact that THULASI team did really reveal the true figures in their success meet (KUDOS TO THEM!!!). THULASI did really GROSSED 12 Crores in 12 days. Those figures are indeed a PERSONAL RECORD for Venkatesh’s movies. But they look paltry in comparison to the CHIRUTHAs and ATHIDHIs FAKE figures. And Thulasi is doing roaring business in some districts such as GUNTUR. Suresh Film Distributors released the figures for GUNTUR as Rs. 1,13,40,276/- in only 20 DAYS in only 15 CENTERS. These figures have been cross checked by my sources and they seem to be true.

So, overall THULASI is a success.

UPDATE: 22/11/2007
THULASI has crossed Rs. 22 Crores mark and is on its way to end up around Rs. 25-26 Crores in its entire run.

TULASI MOVIE CREDITS:

CAST:
LEAD ACTORS: VENKATESH, ATHULITH (SON)
LEAD ACTRESS: NAYANATARA
OTHERS: SIVAJI, RAMYA KRISHNA, ASHISH VIDYARTHI, JAYA PRAKASH REDDY, RAHUL DEV, RAVI BABU, RIAZ KHAN, TANIKELLA BHARANI, PARUCHURI VENKATESWARA RAO, ALI, RAGHU BABU, JHANSI, VIJAY KUMAR, SHRIYA (ITEM GIRL)
DIALOGUES: PARUCHURI BROTHERS
STUNTS: KANAL KANNAN & RAM LAKSHMAN
STORY: BOYAPATI SRINU & AKULA SIVA
EDITING: MARTHAND K VENKATESH
MUSIC: DEVI SRI PRASAD
SCREENPLAY/DIRECTION: BOYAPATI SRINU
PRODUCER: D SURESH BABU
BANNER: SURESH PRODUCTIONS
RELEASE DATE: 12, OCTOBER, 2007

KALCHAs CRITICAL RATING: 2/10
[Venkatesh=0.5, Nayanatara=0.25, Shriya+Jhansi+Raghu Babu+Sivaji+Jaya Prakash Reddy=0.25, Dialogues=0.25, Screenplay=0.25, Music=0.25, Direction=0.25]

KALCHAs COMMERCIAL RATING: 6.5/10
[Venkatesh=1, Nayanatara=0.5, Athulith=0.5, Shriya+Jhansi+Raghu Babu+Sivaji+Jaya Prakash Reddy=0.5, Costumes=0.25, Dialogues=0.5, Choreography=0.25, Stunts=0.5, Cinematography=0.25, Story=0.5, Screenplay=0.25, Editing=0.25, Music=0.75, Direction=0.75]

VERDICT: “Critically, Very Hollow And Still A Blockbuster…”

ACTING WISE

For Venkatesh, portraying Tulasi is a cake walk… But the character is so cliche ridden that his effort doesn’t fetch him much accolades… But still, it is the best performance of Tualsi. He certainly looks the handsomest among the senior heroes… In fact Venkatesh overtook Nagarjuna in this department since Gharshana… Since Super, Nagarjuna isn’t looking his best and with long hair and a whitish beard he looks pathetic and is fast losing his fan base… whereas, Venkatesh is always clean shaved, sporting cool denims most of the times and with the best muscles among the seniors…

Nayanatara’s character had ample scope to perform but unfortunately the screenplay ruined the party for her… She just had to stare at Venkatesh intently so as to show her anger… And I don’t think it is that hard enough for a talented actress like Nayanatara. As for the glamour part, she is used more for her body skills than her acting skills…

As for Athulith, the kid might be cute but was not at all expressive… He just stands looking cute and the dialogues pour out of the speaker boxes… I know you might feel I am going hard on the kid… But just rent a DVD of ANJALI and have the pleasure of watching Baby Shamili to know how expressive kids could be at a much younger age… And I didn’t even mention Hollywood and its amazing kids… Of course musch lies in the hands of the directors when it comes to Kids…

As always, Jhansi, Jaya Prakash Reddy and Raghu Babu were at their hilarious best… But I am still hoping that someone would write a character challenging enough for Raghu Babu… “Coz he is way better an actor to just remain in the corner post of a villain’s den… If I may say so… He belongs to the league of great actor Kota Srinivasa Rao.

Sivaji doesn’t disappoint and this might be his best performance after Missamma.
There are too many waste characters in the movie… like Tanikella Bharani and Ravi Babu… They were just not needed for Tulasi.

TECHNICALLY SPEAKING

DIALOGUES:
Generally, I don’t like Paruchuri Brothers with their cliched dialogue writing in Seema movies… But dialogues in Tulasi were surprisingly toned down and at times refreshing for a Seema movie…
STUNTS:
If I could, I would have given negative rating just for the vehicles flying in an action episode completely out of sync with the point of contact with the hitting vehicle… It is like watching Chinese movies in Telugu with horrible dubbing.
STORY:
Here too… I would have given negative rating if I could. The story at the core is just a plain copy of ANTHAHPURAM. But it is woven with too many cliched characters and so diluting the genius of the story of Anthahpuram. And then it is completely formula ridden with a Cute Kid, Father and Son sentiment, Thali sentiment, Comedy, Songs including one item song, Barrage of villains, Seema faction, Powerful dialogues, Foreign locales, Variety of weapons, Flying vehicles, Bullets traveling at the speed of the hero… (Just before interval, in an action scene, hero looks at the villain as he fires… and then looks at the target (His Son)… and then runs… and then dives in the air… and at last the bullet hits the hero instead of the target… I am just sick of all this…
EDITING:
Editing is not as bad as the story itself… And in fact if not for the editing… the movie could’ve been like 3-4 individual movies in a sequence…
MUSIC:
As usual, commercially good but critically pathetic effort… by Devi Sri Prasad. I believe he has just 3-5 tunes in his repertoire… and mixes, remixes, repeats, tones up and tones down and also copies to make many hits over these years. For instance, beautifully composed NEE KALLATHOTI is a rehashed, re-orchestrated, repeat of Sontham’s TELUSUNA…
SCREENPLAY:
An okay screenplay is what saves this movie… Very cliched largely but with some interesting experiments worth appreciating. I liked the transition of the scene where the audience are involved in the party of Sivaji and his buddy and suddenly Sivaji gets up seeing the villain and slowly goes up to him and bangs a liquor bottle on his head… I believe no one in the theater expects the turn of events in that scene… That is the best scene of the film. In one more scene the audience starts to believe that Rahul Dev is gonna shoot Venkatesh and suddenly the bullet fires but not from his gun… The bullet hits Rahul Dev in the forehead and the audience would be really surprised in that scene…
DIRECTION:
Boyapati Srinu fails in opening this Tollywood commercial potboiler with a bang… I liked the theme of a fashion show with the titles… but it was not presented with the richness in cinematography. I liked the profession that the director and the story writers assigned for Nayanatara… a fashion designer. Otherwise it wouldn’t have been convincing to us when she exposes herself in the movie as much as she did (In Bhayya, Priyamni being a studious innocent girl, whose life is education… suddenly takes off her clothes in the songs for us…). Boyapati Srinu has the nack of making blockbusters out of nothing like V V Vinayak and Puri Jagannath. He picks up a beaten story and stuffs it with enough juice to entice the general movie buffs… He is the next sensation at the Box-Office… Watch out…!!!

READERs RATING ON TULASI:

DO NOT MISS KALCHAs TUALSI BOX-OFFICE PREDICTION

SIMBU has been trying hard to become real life Casanova for a long time now… His brief but sensational affair with popular actress Nayanatara made him more popular than his films… But somehow Nayanatara got rid of him and is now, with some self imposed restrictions regarding media interaction, is back to giving hits. Recently her movie Thulasi with Venkatesh released and is running to packed houses in Tollywood. Whereas Simbu has found yet another girl who was his college mate if rumours are to be believed… And grapevine is also that he is harassing her constantly even though she is not interested in him…

TULASI is by far the hardest one I ever predicted… I am writing this prediction on the second day of TULASIs release… and I already read a lot of negative reviews in the media on the first day itself… As I said earlier, this negative talk and negative publicity in the media makes this prediction very harder… But I believe in my own theories… And remember, I may also go WRONG… in which case this would become another case study for me…Always remember that my predictions are based on general movie market economics that I am aware of… through extensive study of various film industries and their business over the years… like Hollywood, Bollywood, Tollywood, Kollywood etc., I also assume a lot of things just based on my GUT feeling. Movie buffs should know the fact that many a time… Great movies topple at the Box-Office and Bad movies make Crores of bucks… My predictions are not at all biased and do not favor or disregard any particular STAR. If you don’t believe in me then just don’t read any further… My effort is to educate Tollywood movie buffs about the way the movie market works and how… MANY GULLIBLE PRODUCERS are losing crores of bucks through ignorance and believing blindly that STARS make money for them which is largely untrue… The recent example being the stupendous success of an all new star cast and low budget HAPPY DAYS at the same time when a huge Banner movie toppled at the Box-Office… You can read my earlier posts to verify any doubts…

IN A NUTSHELL: Thulasi will open huge due to the number of prints being 290 (Highest for Venkatesh). And then would take over the Box-Office like a Tsunami… Thulasi would gross the highest collection in VENKATESHs career… I predict the gross collection would be a Minimum of Rs. 28 Crores and may go even up to Rs. 45 Crores IF AND ONLY IF… Mahesh Babu’s Athidhi topples at the Box-Office…

REASONS:
1. Venkatesh has always been the most consistent performer at the Box-Office… Though we do not see huge frenzy for his movies as with many other leading stars… his movies have relatively been the safest bets for the producers so far… Venkatesh mostly hits the right formula to make a success out of a movie… Same is the case with Tulasi… Though critically it is a let down… it is laden with the right formula to make a blockbuster out of nothing…
2. A cute kid always appeals to all… irrespective of A, B and C classes.
3. Clean comedy always appeals to all strata of the society. (Venkatesh has one of the best comic timings…)
4. Though in overdose, Sentiment in Venkatesh’s movies always appeal to women and especially B and C centers.
5. Currently, there is not a single MASS (B and C) appealing movie since Yamadonga.
6. Venkatesh has a C-A market whereas Mahesh Babu has A-C market… So Athidhi’s release won’t effect Thulasi negatively. But might affect positively if Athidhi flops… (If you don’t understand what I mean you are always welcome to ask…) —KALCHA

DO NOT MISS KALCHAs TULASI MOVIE REVIEW

NAYANATARA is quite impressed and says that, “SREENU VAITLA has an amazing sense of humour. He will have you laughing your guts out. Perhaps that’s why he handles comedy so well. At the moment, I am working for him in DUBAI SREENU, opposite RAVI TEJA. And I am sure this rib tickling comedy will be loved by people.” The film is being produced by Bhagawan and Daanaiah.

Nayanatara is gonna sport a new look in her forthcoming films… Though she is beautiful, many would agree that she is not among the slimmer bhamas that are thrust upon Tollywood just for the sake of glamour and eye candy… So this beauty from south is gonna transform herself to compete on the highest platform… That would definitely be a big boon for Tollywood (Telugu Film Industry) as she is beautiful, gracious, good actresses and to top it she is gonna be slimmer… She says, “Being in the glamour industry, it is very important to have a good physique. Look at Esha Deol, who follows a strict fitness regime. After all, apart from good acting, a good body is important to chart out a successful career in the film industry and so I have hit the gym with a vengeance.” Now this is definitely an inspirational story starring Esha Deol in the lead…

Yogi is again one of the easiest to predict… Actually it makes me wonder as to which decade this movie belongs to? During the 1980s we used to bear the torture of many of these so called mother sentimental drama flicks… but since then, humans species have matured enough to reject them and I feel Tollywood audience are among them… And no prizes to any one for guessing my prediction… ‘Coz even a kindergarten student can predict this…

IN A NUTSHELL: Huge first day collections and there ends the party… ‘Coz before the week ends it is out of many theaters to even start a publicity campaign reporting fake collections to boost the box-office… So it would end up as another Prabhas’s never ending series of disasters…